Update, 10:34 a.m. PDT, Nov. 1: In response to Game Front’s questions about potentially allowing Battlefield 4 to install to a USB 2.0 drive in the same way that Call of Duty: Ghosts can, an EA spokesman said he “can’t comment on what other companies are doing as we’re not exactly the same game.” At the moment, it’s unclear if DICE might be able to or willing to patch Battlefield 4 in the future. We’ll keep an eye on this story and update it accordingly, should anything change.

In the meantime, while Game Front asked about the potential for refunds on Battlefield 4 to owners of the Xbox 360 Slim 4GB consoles, EA has not addressed that question. That means the only solution is to purchase a hard drive for your Xbox 360 Slim if you want to play Battlefield 4. You can find them just about anywhere, but a good place to start checking is Amazon. We’d suggest sticking with the official Microsoft versions, however, unless you’re feeling adventurous and willing to gamble on a larger (or smaller) unofficial hard drive.

Update, 11:02 a.m. PDT, Oct. 31: Game Front has independently verified that retail copies of Battlefield 4 on Xbox 360 include a warning on the back of the box that notifies players of the requirement of a hard drive for the game to work, as Electronic Arts noted in a statement to Game Front (see an image we took of the back of the box here). Although EA has not officially confirmed it, it now seems unlikely the publisher will offer refunds to players who purchased Battlefield 4 either without realizing it required a hard drive, or without realizing that the 4GB storage in the Xbox 360 Slim is not, in fact, a hard drive itself.

There may yet be some kind of workaround for the Battlefield 4 install problem if you do happen to own the 4GB Xbox 360, however, as indicated by news surrounding Call of Duty: Ghosts. According to a report from Polygon, Ghosts also requires an install to run its single-player campaign — 3GB worth, in fact. That install can’t be done to the Xbox 360′s 4GB flash memory drive, but it can be installed to a USB 2.0 drive, effectively allowing CoD players to make the install on a much cheaper USB drive instead of purchasing a hard drive for their Xbox 360.

Also, unlike Battlefield, players can opt out of the Ghosts install. Opting out means that Ghosts’ campaign won’t work for those players, but they can still play multiplayer with no issues, the report states.

We’ve reached out to Electronic Arts to find out definitively if refunds will or won’t be offered, and to find out if any workarounds to the install issue might be forthcoming in future updates.

Update, 1:46 p.m. PDT: Electronic Arts returned Game Front’s request for comment, saying that the publisher “communicated the required installation and HDD space requirement to the public a few weeks ago,” and pointed to a few instances in which that was the case — specifically, a Tweet from the official Battlefield Twitter account, an EA support page, and a forum post:

According to a later tweet, the issue is Battlefield 4′s high-resolution texture pack, which needs to be installed on an Xbox 360 hard drive in order for the game to run. Battlefield 3 had a similar issue, although players could still access the game, just without high-res textures (making it significantly less pleasant visually).

The link in the tweet above points to the EA support page that informed players of the necessity of a 2GB hard drive installation on Xbox 360 versions of Battlefield 4. That post was updated on Oct. 29 to also include information that the install would not work on the Xbox 360 4GB storage. An earlier version of the page shows what it looked like before the addition.

The Battlelog forum post, found here, also notes the install but doesn’t call out the act that the 4GB storage won’t work.

In EA’s defense, however, this is not the first time such a problem has occurred, but the scale has been smaller. For instance, you couldn’t play Halo: Reach’s co-op on the 4GB Xbox 360 because the machine doesn’t recognize the 4GB storage device as a hard drive. Since the 4GB storage is not, in fact, a hard drive, you can’t install Battlefield 4′s data to it. However, just what the level of knowledge is on this issue for Xbox 360 4GB owners is tough to say, and it seems that many had no idea there would be a hard drive issue at all.

We’re reached out to EA for clarification on the comments, and to find out if any restitution will be made for players who bought Battlefield 4 but can’t play it on the 4GB model Xbox 360.

Original story:

We received a handful of reports from Xbox 360 gamers yesterday who couldn’t figure out why Battlefield 4 wouldn’t work on their console. EA Support has offered clarification, and it’s bad news for 4GB Xbox 360 Slim owners.

Battlefield 4 features a mandatory 2GB install on Xbox 360 (14GB if you want the game to actually run how it was designed). That 2GB must be installed on the HDD, which creates huge issues for those of you with the 4GB version of the Xbox 360 S. That’s because that model features flash memory, not a hard drive, and as EA Support confirms: “Battlefield 4 cannot be installed and played on a 4GB internal flash drive.”

Here’s the full statement from EA:

The first time you start your game, regardless of which disc you use, you will be asked to perform a required installation of 2 GB worth of game content to your hard drive.Note, the above-required and below-additional installations can only be installed on Xbox 360 hard disk drives (emphasis ours), and cannot be installed to USB drives, or other alternative storage devices. Battlefield 4 cannot be installed and played on a 4GB internal flash drive.

You will have the option to accept the 2GB install or quit. Quitting will return you to the Xbox dashboard, and you will not be able to play Battlefield 4.

Inexplicably, EA first noted Battlefield 4 will not run on the 4GB Xbox 360 S yesterday, the day BF4 launched and well after many owners of that particular model console had already purchased the game. That’s unforgivable.

We’ve contacted EA for further comment and clarification and will update this post with any response.

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what about those who dont follow them on twitter and just wanted the game like me now I am stuck with a game I can not play and forced to buy a hard drive that I dont want and all that is avaialble are 320 gig hard drives and have to order on on line and wait another week to get it.. I was and still am mad at this.

I just wasted 60 dollars on something I can’t play I was so excited to play this but now ea can go burn

FormerBattlefieldFan

On October 30, 2013 at 6:58 pm

This is the most ridiculous hoax I’ve seen in gaming history, all this hype for Battlefield, I even bought a copy for my neighbor and I can’t even play it because of hardware issues? Not that I don’t have space for the 2G, but because the game that I Pre-ordered and bought for it isn’t compatible ????????

Its just stupid things in life like that that people do to earn money, its all about the graphics, you dont need good graphics to make a great game, look at halo 3 and other original games. As long as your having fun its a great game

The game cover only states 2GB space required! XBOX colluded with EA to fool all! Time to go to Call of Duty.

really?

On October 30, 2013 at 10:22 pm

I bought the game but have not opened it yet. I have GTA 5 on my 64 gig flash drive and its working flawlessly. Why does EA not go this path? Are they in agreement with microsoft so they can sell their cache of slim hard drives before xbox one comes out and they have to scrap a huge boat load of them? Probably not, but it still sucks.

I have been googling work arounds for this over the past 24 hours. What I have so far, for the rest of you that have opened the game or are like me and just want to play it:

A) Buy the hard drive which you can get for around $90-100
B) Buy a slim SATA HDD for around $50, use a formatting program and buy a case designed to fit in your xbox (around $10 newgg)
C) Take a hammer to your game disk to revenge greedy corperations only to find you just put $59.99 in their bank account

Ok fellow slim users, lets stop whining and find a solution. More petitions to EA to patch the game to accept flash memory perhaps?

I can’t say im suprised about this after what happend with BF3. You would expect that EA would have found a way for people with the 4gb machines to be able to install the mandatory 2gb. But that would actually mean EA using common sense.

This needs to be fixed. I preordered the game and was never informed of any issue. I do not follow bf4 on twitter but I did watch a lot of demos and downloaded the beta for the game on my xbox with no issue. I refuse to buy an xbox hard drive because in a month it will be outdated and I won’t buy any more games for the xbox 360. EA can burn in hell.

I have been wanting to buy one for a long time just for the fact that i only have a 4gb Xbox. I have bought two flash drives for my xbox that have put me about 40 dollars back any way. i think a 150 gb hard drive would be very nice not only for BF 4 but for any time i need to download something. Thank you so much for your help!!

Microsoft: “hey lets sell a cool xbox 360 with 4GB INTERNAL HARD DRIVE”
EA: “hey thats cool but bf4 won’t on an internal hard drive, but hey lets be sure to not inform gamers at all about this”
(EA didn’t fully inform anybody, I don’t care how many little stickers they put on the game and I don’t have a twitter)

I fully plan on pirating the out of this game and selling it 40 bucks a pop to people who have xboxes that this POS can work on.

you EA
your repetitive Madden bull (hows bout I buy Madden for 60$ and you guys just update the rosters every month, you’re not giving us any new features)
your inferior Battlefield franchise

FOR THOSE OF YOU CLAIMING ITS 100$ FOR A HARDRIVE you are leaving out he’s that’s in store retail but if ur willing to wait a few days like me ebay or amazon sell them at minimum 30$ 320gb news flash slim owners like myself, we will eventually will have to buy one some day and all were aware that buying 4gb flash was not really gonna get us anywhere I kno we wanted to save 100$ from buying that 205gb or 320gb xbox well u can still save a heap buying online just info for those thinking huge digit is the only way to play well its not also most sellers are free shipping. I got 320 gb xbox S hard drive for 50 bucks only paid a little more cause I trust certain sellers good luck gamers

they have no choice for restitution either that or a class action lawsuit for false adverstising because the package does not say it at all still if i were all those people id sue it’s ea they need to learn from this

You guys I agree with everything but here’s the facts we’ll all lose period. If you know anything about making a lawsuit and legal rights and what not. FACT: THE FINISHED PRODUCT is all the HOUSE or court room will look at and with that stated they printed what was required to play on the “finished product ” so EA or whoever is behind this will just look down and laugh cause they did meet labeling needs to sell the product.

Dusty

On October 31, 2013 at 2:57 pm

I agree with bob and with this article. I’m glad a writer takes the gamers side.

They failed to tell slim owners (and there are many many many slim owners) that hey “this game won’t work for you”

it really is unforgivable and i would gladly join any class action suit following this debacle.

Dusty you wouldn’t even know where to start. Go head and wear your suit and tie. Bring a copy make a class suit, don’t forget to bring a copy or your game Stating front and back “Hard drive” required. Yeah word of mouth does not work nowadays there’s laws for all such as copyrights and publishing to labeling and marketing. Wait lets not confuse you its all based on tge FINE PRINT in other words you can right it or type it send it thru the system meeting proper standards in whatever’ category your business is in and wala!! So going in there talking about “what you heard and what was not said” is as good as walking out smacking yourself with a copy of your game

Theres thousands of people complaining about this issue online. EA is at fault for that. I’m not wasting time on someone of inferior intellect.

Get pooped on.

Durrell

On October 31, 2013 at 4:54 pm

Yea I was very upset know that I get the game when it comes out but know one tells me that it wont work on my 4GB Xbox 360. Don’t you think they should of told everybody this before the game came out just so everybody who does have a 4GB Xbox wont be surprise when they buy the game and try to play it and find out that it wont work. I really wish there was something we could do about this problem.

Some of you should realize that not everyone is a gamer. Some people buy this for their kids or as gifts. I bought it for my kid. Since I do not game myself except with him I am not privy to the on line world that would make mention of this issue. Every game I ever purchased for him has worked on this console, why would I think this one would be any different. Also when purchasing it why where the people at EB games not notified of this and told to warn people about this? Now I am told to get it to work I have to purchase a $130.00 external hard drive! Thanks a lot XBOX and EA Games. At least Ghosts you can use a USB. Cheezy way to make money EA! Can not wait to get rid of this XBOX now! Hello PS4.

Eric

On October 31, 2013 at 5:34 pm

I’ve spent some time looking for a resolution to this. I cannot find any as of yet but I would encourage anyone having these issues to report Electronic Arts to the Better Business Beureu in hopes that they can offer a refund or a fix.

I’m not sure if you all ragequit already but I have a cheap solution for everybody. Go to the pawn shop or Craigslist and grab an old xbox hdd, 20gb are super cheap. Take off the plastic casing, it’s like 2 screws you can Google it, then plug it in. I hope I help one person.

Can’t believe Microsoft would try to pull this. I don’t follow Twitter and I haven’t played a game for about 6 months,bf3. just wanted to buy a 60 dollar game and kill some time. Now I have to do all this and but an extra hard drive
just to play. well looks like I’m going to ps4. sign me up for the lawsuit.

DocKilo

On November 1, 2013 at 11:37 am

lol a bunch of xbox fans. thinking because a company bring out a huge game that ppl with a ty 4gb console will run it… think again idiots if u had a PC with 4 gb u could’nt do a . must be the same with evrey gaming machines. DON T expect EA to lower the game for ur ty consoles. i say u guys deserved this ur xbox suck ass. now u realize it. the truth hurts hun ?

Nice post. EA is losing a large fraction of their target market, the casual gamer. Most gamers are of the casual type who don’t care to invest the time or money for all the extra stuff. Big mistake ignoring the amount of 4gb users out there. I’m not gonna buy an external hard drive. I’m not gonna buy an xbox one now, and ill never buy another EA game.

Gimme a refund and I would reconsider.

ConcernedGamer

On November 1, 2013 at 1:56 pm

If you think a class-action lawsuit will work, go for it. Personally, I would recommend that none of you preorder ANY game (but especially from EA). Instead, wait for release, and give it a week or two before buying. The big companies like EA are thriving off of those that blindly preorder expecting the product to meet expectations. If you really want to give EA a hit, either stop preordering, or don’t buy from them altogether. Truthfully, you’re not getting anything special from being to first to purchase the game. The preorder bonuses are often made available to other players a year or two after release, anyway.

Just another dagger in the heart of Microsoft as the PS4 has been crushing them in every way possible coming up on the new gen releases… EA can suck it too, they have been robbing people for about 7 years on Madden. Everyone just buy a PS4 to send another big message. I am however still going to buy BF4 for PS4, but Best Buy will let you trade in for old generation and for just $10 get the new gen version. Only thing that has stopped me from cussing out Xbox support.

wtf I got this game from a large retail chain. even if there is a warning on the back I would have not seen it as the sales person takes it out of a glass case then rings it up by the way he never said (while wearing his bf4 key chain) it wont work on my xbox this is bs and if they wont refund me tomorrow then all hell will break lose f a lawsuit I wont my 60 bucks back and I will pawn my xbox to buy a ps4 f u Microsoft I keep telling people the xbox one is going to be great that I was going to get one I don’t think so now

Dude honestly this is bs. I got this game for my little brother and now he is heart broken that he can’t play it and we have to get a flipin hard drive are you kidding me!!! Heuebegskdbegebdi I’m so pissed words can’t even begin to describe….

BadboyChip

On November 2, 2013 at 7:06 pm

Hi do anyone own the Xbox 360 4gb slim and has jus purchased BATTLEFFIELD 4 it does work on the 4gb slim if u own a 80gb laptop hard drive.I had an old one just layin about so i slotted into the hard drive slot on the side of the Xbox 360 4gb slim and voila it worked oh one thing the hard drive must be sata enjoy battlefield 4 peeps if u need advice u can find me on Xbox live badboychip is the gamertag and TripleTrouble is the clan name

BS-Man

On November 3, 2013 at 9:45 am

Build an xbox that can’t even play an xbox game. WONDEFUL!

What kind of BS is this?

andrewr

On November 3, 2013 at 1:26 pm

EA. gots idk why they didn’t clarify we could not install it onto an external hard drive this is bull I’m out 69 bucks for no reason

Victor

On November 4, 2013 at 11:56 am

this is why I’m COD straight up, PS3 or Xbox 360.
1 – Doesnt take up GB JUST for an update

the thing that gets me is that instead of stating you couldn’t use a usb external hard drive, they just kept their mouths shut and let everyone waste their money. this kinda stuff is why i don’t do EA products. back to CoD then.

Yeah im a little upset about this being just a casual gamer and not a huge follower of techie bs. What irritates me most is the sales associate at Gamestop didnt even inform me…not that I guess he had any obligation to, but it would have been nice. Lesson learned.

Hey guys i figured out a way to use you slim with battlefield 4 if u have a xbox 360 hard drive you cant take it apart and take the drive out and put it in your xbox slim make sure its all the way on but dont push to hard youll break the tray.

Is there a way that people could make them implement a patch that either makes the update not required (like it is in battlefield 3) or makes it so you can use whatever storage you want.

cuz this is absolutely ridiculous, like i knew that Microsoft and especially EA is just loads of money grubbing whores. but i definitely thought that if i paid 60 buck for a game and had a perfectly fine xbnox i would get to play that game!

I have not found a single reason for why they made is the way they did besides they want to get every dime they can no matter what it does to their customers

Wish i knew this before i spent around 60 bucks on the damn game, now im sitting here with 2 worthless disks unless i go out and but a freaking hard drive. This is bull. I bought the game thinking i could play it like every other game i have bought. guess not. Really this is some crap. Is it my fault i don’t follow them on twitter? Something like this should have been stressed far more. so yea im pissed.

Thanks mom for wasting 60 dollars and being broke to buy me bf4 and guess what mom I can’t play the game because of space.Also at game stop a lady who works there said that a USB drive will work on my xbox360 slim.

This is absolute BS. I was so excited about this game. My wife knows how I am when it comes to battle field. I own damn near all of battle field everything for pc, play station, Xbox. Been playing them all since they existed. Now this????? ( Xbox one goes on sale soon, what are we gonna do about all the Xbox 360 crap sitting on the shelves at all these stores?? I have a really good idea, and you are gonna love this!! Lets make a game that people( including our loyal gamers that have been supporting us since the beginning) have to go buy all that crap from the shelves before they can even start playing the new game hahahahaha. Like seriously? What kind of kickback did Microsoft give you for that??

This is a classic case of deceptive advertising. There was no message stating this would not work on my 4G XBOX 360. Even worse, I bought Battlefield 4 at Walmart and they don’t give refunds or allow you to exchange for a compatible game. I have a sixty dollar paper weight at the moment… and it’s not even very good at that. Someone should be made to make this right.

I wanted 2 buy bf4 (even if i knew ea sucks) but now ea can go to hell i’m getting myself cod ghost.
At least they have common sense,all games gta 5,cod ghosts etc can be installed on flash storage but i guess i expected 2 much ea.

I’m very disappointed.. family with five kids money is tight.. bought my son this game because it’s all we could afford the one thing he really wanted and deserved for Christmas and he can’t even play it! How am ia mother to know this stuff..thanks for ruining Christmas.

my son just received battlefield 4 as a Christmas gift and it will not play on his xbox….big disappointment, and the store doesn’t make you aware of it..

brian

On December 26, 2013 at 3:09 pm

i dont play that much so i delete most of all my other games, well battlefield 3 and have the 2gb space but then it tells me it has to be hd mode or something. if anyone has any idea how to help please it would be appreciated. i miss the day when u can come home from store and play a f_cking game.

OK…. heres a SOLUTION !!!! YOU CAN GO TO GAMESTOP AND BUY A EXTERNAL HARDDRIVE FOR 30 BUCKS. THEN GO TO YOUTUBE AND TYPE IN HOW TO MAKE A EXTERNAL HARDDRIVE INTO A INTERNAL HARDDRIVE. VERY EASY TO DO. AND SAVES YOU FROM BUYING A 130 DOLLAR INTERNAL DRIVE. HOPE THAT HELPS YOU OUT.

i seem to be having the same probs as evry 1 else with a 4gb xbox,,just been out n bout a 500gb hd n it still wont load,,,should have read all these tweets first,,,,at first i thought it was the discs,so i bought another,,,what a dumb ass i am,,,going to return both games to different stores,,,my 8 yr old is devastated at xmas time aswell,,iv spent bout 3 hrs trying to work round it but no,,cant do,,,it should state on the game
“will not work on a 4gig xbox”,,wankers are us(ea)

This is about the dumbest thing.. I went out and bought this game for my Xbox 360 Slim 4GB and now I’m stuck with a $55 game that I can’t even play. Never buying Battlfield franchise again. HUGE disappointment.

Dark Knight

On January 2, 2014 at 8:04 am

EA – Should be ashamed of themselves – how many people had this purchased for them by persons
who wanted to give it to someone at Christmas not all people who purchased it will have thought that it would give those they were buying it for so much of an issue, it states yes hard-drive but in such small
print that many would have simply expected it to work for those they were buying it for. Not a good start
to 2014 EA – and also not a good rep for the new Xbox One – looks like EA are simply out for the money
as why release it at all on the older machine – why not simply stick to the Xbox One.

This is bs because I spent 60.00 on this game and also xbox live to enjoy the game with friends and family . No one at gamestop told me about at a hard drive needed to be able to play the game . But I was told about GTA V 8 gb . It’s stupid I mean I understand now on the box they have the hard drive issue now , but what kind of gamer would sit there and read all the warnings and stuff. Some people who can’t read that tthey justwant to play their game and have fun. Another reason I am choosing PlayStation 4 over Xbox One . I was at Microsoft’s side but now they are just plain gots who only want their money.

happysycko

On January 12, 2014 at 7:58 pm

I just rented it because of the hype…..what the hell guys?….now i just walked a mile and a half home to find out i cant play the Damn thing?! You guys ruined my freaking night (yes not the end of the world…but hear say is a when its negative)

I bought the game only to find out that I couldn’t even play it, now I’m deciding whether I should buy a hard drive or not. I looked online and found a 20gb xbox 360 internal HDD Hard Drive for as little as 24$ and was wondering if it can play the game? I don’t want to purchase 250gb or 300gb, I just want to play the game, so if anybody can give me a yes or no answer with an explanation that would be great.

The reason I prefer console to pc is because its much more convenient. Put the disc in the console and play the game. But now for the first time in over 30 years of gaming, I put the disc in and…what? Must have a proper HD to download content. Well, I have a proper xbox. It has an internal HD…no wait, now I’m told that it isn’t technically a HD, it is an internal flash drive. Well excuse me! It says on the back of the game that you must have 2 gb of HD space available for the game to work. Like I said, I’ve been buying games for over 30 years. I was buying games for the commodore 64 when most of you weren’t even thought of.lol. There is nothing on the back of that game to suggest that a 4gb machine won’t play it.Period. I bought mine from Future Shop and they took it back with no questions asked. Even after it was opened. Kudos to them. But EA or Microsoft or Dice or whoever best get their **** together and state CLEARLY on the game that a 4 gb machine will not work with this game. Leaving it as it is…Criminal. Plain and simple. Used to be a PS guy. Switched to 360 cause my buddies had it. I’ve gone through 3 360 consoles in the last 6 years. Garbage. And one guy has the nerve to say that us 4gb guys are getting what we deserve? Are you insane?!!! Go crawl back under your pile of money dude.

ing burn in hell you mental retards.. Who would want to steal your HD pack anyway? You think somehow you’re stopping those who will jack your by FORCING players to get another ing hard drive just to play on the console, WHICH ALREADY HAS A 4GB DRIVE?!?

the comment i want to post won’t fit in the allowed space so here is the play by play short version. This is where i’m at with console gaming / online gaming.
- I bought a xbox with a hard drive and it lasted two weeks longer then the warranty then RED RING.
- didn’t know about the red ring could have been a over heating problem
-called microsoft, $150 was the repair estimate, i would have pay for shipping, and it could take weeks.
- New slim version just came out, 4Gb for $200. I’LL TAKE IT. I have that older hard drive already and mainly use flash drives anyway for easier and safer transportation of fully installed applications to be able to game away from my xbox without the profile retrieval nonsence.
-ended up being incompatible, the slim and the HD. (Didn’t effect me much tho, plenty of memory in USBs)

-Playing BF3 and loving it.. pre-orderd BF4 while the beta was still out, never even crossed my mind that i might be able to play the beta but not the game off the disk. ** after playing Black Ops i was finished with crappy COD. the zombies aspect was the only thing that kept it popular even tho the game couldn’t do anything right with everyone at different speeds and one giving one person a huge advantage as host.
(this was my fault) A buddy bought GHOSTS and i tried it one day. BF4 BETA now gone, I thought GHOST was worth purchasing to be able to game with my friends. Who were wearing the knees out of pants in love with this spray and prey across a football field sized map, shoot you in the foot and be awarded a headshot corner camping lag fest, that was claiming to be getting dedicated servers right around the time a false amount of sold copies was reported to the press claiming to be a new sales record.( I Tried returning that week but with so many copies being returned stores stoppd taken em.)

jaxxjazzman

On September 30, 2014 at 3:42 am

I m gonna sell this dumb game……this game suckzz only for tat hardware thingy:(:(:(:(

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